wrapping it up - saturday

 we got up early and packed up camp. we were very proud of ourselves. we had hiked 62 miles in 5 days with daytime highs soaring into the mid 80s to about 90 degrees. that's by far the most hiking we've ever done in such a short amount of time and in such heat. we were very proud of sierra for keeping up with us!

 after coming home we identified this plant as a four o'clock.

 gorgeous!

 we decided to drive out along montezuma canyon.

 we found a few sites to get out and look at.

 what?! this was our fourth collared lizard of the trip. they are so gorgeous.

 people had blasted out holes in the rock to use as storage.

 geese.

 and we even saw a few homes built into the rock.

 looking off on the other side of the canyon, i noticed those moki steps up to that cave. how cool is that?

we had a really fun time on our bears ears vacation. we never would have done this if not for the social distancing/virus situation. i'm definitely not grateful for the virus and the pain and suffering its caused, but i am grateful we live in such a gorgeous and interesting state that allows us to do cool things like this. we'll definitely come back down here, but not until fall. it's too hot now!

last full day - friday

oh our last full day. we enjoyed our hikes on friday--we went to one location in the am and a different one in the afternoon.

 cairn. we liked to call cairns fillapellis on this trip--because cairn sounds like karen, and there's karen fillapelli on the office.

 water. we didn't see very much of it during our week.

 we thought this might be a fox's footprint. we were hoping it was a ringtail footprint, but i just looked it up. unfortunately, it's not one.

 s found these tumbleweed type things and enjoyed playing with them.

 the sacred datura plant. 

 look how huge that flower is.

 the day before in our outing, we noticed this big cave. so on friday we actually hiked to it. unfortunately, there were no structures or rock art in it, but it was still cool.

 i love this cool series of pictures of pine sap.

 yes, all three of these are about the same, but i love them.

 this picture is so we could remember that we saw a two-tailed lizard. sierra is the lizard, and i'm holding up two fingers. get it?

 i love these hand prints.

 here we were sitting on one side of the canyon, and we watched play out before us a very cool scene. we could follow a raven to its nest on the other side of the canyon. and we could see and hear (they were loud) its babies! then the raven's mate came around too. the adult ravens would leave for a while and fly off out of sight and call in a way that sounded like a horn. we sat and watched this for probably 20 minutes. 

we got into a little rain friday afternoon. nothing substantial, but it sure smelled and felt good.

 i loved this flower. it would bell out into a 5-edged star. 

 on the hike out of this canyon, b abruptly stopped, which caused sierra to bump into him. the abrupt stop was due to this curled up rattle snake!

 b edged toward a little, it rattled at us, and then went off into the scrub brush. woo! nothing like a rattle snake to get your heart rate up a bit.

 we loved our campsite. it was right by a road, but we saw fewer than 10 cars the whole week drive past us on it.